Maximum Ride: Hover's Quest
by alec-jacobson223
Summary: What if Max and her flock weren't the only human-avians created? After Hover's whole family is killed in a freak "accident," she is taken in by Max and her family. Together they dodge whitecoats, erasers, and the dangers of puberty. (Trust me, the story isn't as lame as I make it sounds; I'm just bad at summaries. At least I can capitalize and punctuate though.)
1. Warning

You're about to read about someone's life. It's not gonna be sugar-coated. It's not gonna be pretty all the time. Or even most of the time, honestly. But, hey, you chose to read about mutant bird kids.

So, reader-

Reader - that sounds so formal. Can I call you Frankie? That's a nice gender-neutral name. Sounds kinda like what I'd probably name my pet cat. If I had one.

We're a bit off topic.

Anyway, Frankie, I just want to let you know what you're getting yourself into, diving into this story. Life ain't all sunshine and butterflies. It isn't all bad either, though. I'm gonna give it to you straight, and if it gets too tough, I won't blame you for jumping ship. God only knows how many times I wished I could do that. But when it's your own life, well... You can't exactly take a snack break and watch TV and then get back to it.

This is my life story, and my family's story, and also the story of a girl named Maximum Ride.


	2. Introduction

Your wishes never really do come true the way you wish they would. Like when you wished you could eat all the cake you wanted, then you got to and threw up. Or when you finally saved up enough money to get that toy and then it broke on the first day you played with it. Or when you just wished you could have some time to be alone and then suddenly you were. And it was awful.

Three weeks, Frankie. That's how long I'd been on my own. No amount of time with screaming children and obnoxious tweens could have ever made me enjoy this. It was like if I didn't keep moving, I'd shrink. I'd see myself as a small figure on the flat, brown landscape. Then I'd be the size of an ant, then just a speck, then I was just a molecule, an atom. If I didn't keep moving, I'd vanish altogether. I was losing myself without them.

I was in Utah, following the stupid, stupid map. I hated that map. I hated the little words that crawled across the page in that all-too-familiar handwriting. The crayon doodles in the margin and strange sticky spots in the corners. I would have hated it more if it was blank, but it helped to be angry at something other than myself.

I'd been flying for hours. My back was starting to ache. How long has it been since I've eaten? Twelve hours? Twenty-four? When your insides are already gnawing away at you with grief, it's hard to tell when you're hungry. I landed ungracefully on a small nook in a canyon wall. I didn't have the willpower to even try to stay upright. I just let myself fall in a small puff of orange dust.

What's that Frankie? Wings? Oh, you're wondering about the wings. I have them. Keep up with the story.

I was looking for someone. All I had was an awful map and a name: Maximum Ride. Who they were and how they could help me were questions I didn't have the strength to pose. They were simply the last words spoken to me by the only adult I ever trusted. Did I still trust him?

Oceana did. She never stopped trusting him, even on the day he left and didn't come back. She didn't stop trusting him when we were waiting for him for two months in that little shack at the top of the hill. Hell, she didn't even stop trusting him when he left us alone. A bunch of kids. Alone.

"What if Maximum Ride is why he left?" said an unsolicited voice in my head. "Maybe she's replacing you."

I lay there on the sandy ledge and curled up into the fetal position. I'd been alone for three weeks. I didn't even know if I could talk anymore, seeing as I hadn't had human (or human-avian) communication in so long.

Maybe, just maybe, if I just lay here and cried, everything would just stop. The earth would stop spinning, my brain would stop pounding in my ears, and my family would stop being dead.

Looking back, I can tell you this was the worst moment of my entire life. Even when I was literally about to die, I didn't feel the hopelessness and despair I did in that moment.

I think it's appropriate to start my story here, because then you know the worst of me. A fifteen-year-old collapsed in a canyon in the middle of one of those square-shaped states in the middle of the US, crying, wishing she were dead. I thought I had nothing left to live for.

But at that very moment, I met someone who would change my life forever. Well, not so much meet as get kicked in the stomach and then lifted by the throat against the cliff wall. But the other way is more dramatic.


End file.
